Houthi gains and Saudi pipeline shutdown threaten energy flows
A Guardian editorial published September 16 reported that Yemen’s Houthi movement had claimed thousands of kilometers of territory along the country’s Red Sea coast in a matter of days, seizing strategically important islands and establishing control over the Bab al-Mandab strait. The strait is the other major regional energy chokepoint after the Strait of Hormuz.
The displacement of more than 100,000 people has occurred in a country where half the population already depends on humanitarian aid and where immiseration and forced movement have become routine, the editorial said. Yemen’s civilians are paying the highest price as the conflict escalates.
The Houthi coastal gains coincide with a separate disruption to Saudi oil infrastructure. The Guardian reported that drone strikes blamed on an Iran-backed militia in Iraq have shut Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline, which the kingdom had come to rely on after the Iran war forced a shift away from Persian Gulf shipping. On one estimate cited by the editorial, a month-long closure could remove 120 million barrels from global crude supply.
The editorial argued that the halt to shipping through the Bab al-Mandab could prove far more protracted than the pipeline disruption, noting that routing Saudi oil north to the Red Sea and on to Asian markets is slower and more expensive than Persian Gulf routes. The Houthis, the Guardian added, are also targeting oil facilities directly.
Saudi Arabia had painfully extracted itself from a war with the Houthis — a conflict the Guardian editorial described as recklessly spearheaded by Riyadh, nominally in support of the internationally recognised government, at tremendous cost to its own finances and to Yemeni civilians. After a flight from Iran to Houthi-controlled Sana’a in July, the first such flight in more than a decade, the kingdom had hoped to calibrate its response in a way that preserved the 2022 truce. Saudi bombing of Sana’a airport, the editorial said, gave the Houthis an opening to escalate while blaming Riyadh.
The Guardian argued that the Houthis are not mere proxies for Tehran, but that their interests have become increasingly aligned because of what it characterized as Donald Trump’s unlawful war on Iran. The rebels, the editorial said, need Iranian support and have found new opportunity in the Strait of Hormuz crisis to exert economic pressure and potentially generate income through strategic gains along the coast.
The forces aligned against the Houthis are more divided than ever, the editorial reported. The United Arab Emirates, which had previously clashed with its close partner Saudi Arabia, withdrew its troops at the turn of the year. The Yemeni government and southern secessionists remain fractured, and Saudi airstrikes alone will not push the rebels back, the Guardian wrote.
Donald Trump has rebuffed Saudi requests for help, the editorial said. The Houthis have publicly stated they are targeting only the Saudis, a message the Guardian said reinforces the fact that their leverage could be used more broadly in the future.
Turkey and Pakistan have not rushed to act under the new Mecca defence pact the three countries signed in August, the editorial reported. The Houthis are also closer than ever to Djibouti, which hosts military bases from the United States, China, and other countries, the newspaper noted.
The Guardian concluded that the Saudis face a choice between negotiations with an emboldened enemy now making increasingly maximalist demands, or a return to the kind of full-scale war Riyadh previously regretted, with little international support this time. Outside parties, the editorial argued, should concentrate on promoting a political process within Yemen, stress the protection of civilians, and prioritize a resolution to the Iran war — “without which danger in the region, and broader instability, will only grow.”